


Conga (Rewrite)

by blackmaurs



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dancing, Gen, Ironhusbands, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, James "Rhodey" Rhodes Needs a Hug, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, No clear Timeline it’s just before infinity war and after cacw, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Rhodeytony Day, They both need sleep and a hug, This can be read as them being in a relationship or not it’s up to you, This is a Rewrite Btw for, Tony Stark Needs Sleep, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, great movie btw, mentions is The Birdcage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 03:31:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20284684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackmaurs/pseuds/blackmaurs
Summary: Let it be known that James Rhodes loves his best friend. There isn’t a whole lot he wouldn’t do for him, within and sometimes without reason of course, and he has stuck by his side since he was a scrawny 15-year-old fresh into the college scene. That being said, he was going to strangle the man in the next twenty minutes.





	Conga (Rewrite)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rewrite of my Conga story for Rhodeytony Day you can read the original if you go to my account :) it’s not super duper different tho

Let it be known that James Rhodes loves his best friend. There isn’t a whole lot he wouldn’t do for him, within and sometimes without reason of course, and he has stuck by his side since he was a scrawny 15-year-old fresh into the college scene. That being said, he was going to strangle the man in the next twenty minutes. 

The entire Compound has been shaking with from the vibrations of loud music for the last three days. At first, he ignored it, figuring the genius was on yet another invention binge, except the same song, _Conga_ by Gloria Estefan had been playing over and over and over, nonstop, day and night, for three _days._ Again, Rhodey is a reasonable person, and if had truly bothered him he would have stormed down there by now and dragged the idiot out of the lab and smashed the sound system while he’s at it. 

Except three days turned into four days, somehow the volume had been kicked up even further, and it was 4 in the morning. Rhodey was going to kill him. He sat up from his bed, which had been vibrating as well, much to his annoyance, and grabbed blindly for his braces. Being disoriented from the lack of sleep, it took 20 minutes to get them on and another 2 for the weird sensation in his spine to appear, indicating they were in full operation. He stood up, waiting a moment to regain his footing, and slowly made his way from his bedroom to the lab. He stumbled into the elevator and punched the code in for access to the lab and stared blearily at the door, the turn of Conga getting louder as he went down until it opened up to reveal the lab doors. 

Typing in the code to the lab from memory, he groaned when it said access denied, meaning the lab was in lockdown. He turned tired eyes up to the ceiling, quickly locating the nearest camera.

“Open the door, FRIDAY,” he muttered slowly.

“Sorry, Colonel,” she answered, sounding apologetic. “Boss requested that he be left alone until further notice.”

Rhodey pinched the bridge of his nose and counted backward from 10 in English and then in French when it didn’t work the first time to quell his lack of sleep induced frustration. 

“FRIDAY,” he said as calmly as possible. “This is probably the millionth time I have heard _Conga_ and it is probably stuck permanently in my head, it’s four in the goddamn morning, I haven’t slept properly in four days because of how loud it is, and I might actually lose my freaking mind in the next twenty minutes!” He inhaled and exhaled once, closing eyes and un-balling his fists to calm down once more. “Just...please open the door. Cuz if you don’t I’m gonna go get War Machine and bust the whole thing down myself.”

FRIDAY stayed silent for a moment until the doors slid open, music assaulting his eardrums and making him wince as he tried to cover his ears. 

“Thank you!” He yells over the music.

He walks briskly into the lab, passing DUM-E and U who were waving their claws to the beat until he was met with one Tony Stark who had his back to him and was dancing wildly on his workbench. He’s barefoot, dressed in a greasy tank top and sweatpants that were definitely not his considering how low they hung on his hips.

“Tony!” he shouts as loudly as he could over the music.

Tony doesn’t hear him, continuing to dance, dropping down once in a squat before shimmying his way back up, his ass wiggling slightly as he did. 

“FRIDAY cut the music!” He shouts, hoping the A.I. could hear him. 

The music stops immediately and Tony’s dancing stops with it. He looks up at the ceiling with a confused frown on his face.

“Hey FRI, why’d you cut—” he stops mid-sentence when he notices Rhodey standing behind him with an unimpressed look on his face.

“Platypus!” he says cheerfully. “Whatchu doin’ down here, Honeybear?” he says, a lopsided grin appearing on his face.

Rhodey takes note of how strained the grin is, the deep purple bruises under his eyes, and the slight shakiness to his posture as he tries to stand up straight.

Rhodey sighs and rubs a hand down his tired face. “Tones, it’s 4 in the morning and you have been blasting _Conga_ for 4 days straight to the point where I can hear it on the fourth floor. What the hell are _you_ doing down here?”

The grin on Tony’s face sharpens into the press smile Rhodey hates with a passion. He jumps down from the bench, nearly busting his face on the concrete before righting himself and wandering aimlessly around the lab, picking up scattered objects and broken parts before throwing them back in the general vicinity of where he found them. 

“I’m just doing a little prolonged grind session, Sour Patch. Some experiments here, some inventing there, ya know?”

Rhodey quirks an eyebrow at him, unfaltering gaze fixed on Tony’s equally unwavering one. It’s a decent front he giving him, Rhodey will admit that much, but he’s known the man too long for him to fall for such things anymore. 

“FRI, pull up all of Tony's recent projects and experiments, scrapped or otherwise, he's been working on in the last four days,” he says without looking away from Tony’s gaze.

Tony's head snaps up at the ceiling, stern glare in place. "FRIDAY, don't you dar—”

"Boss currently has no recent projects or experiments he's worked on in the last four days. The last project he actively worked on was last week on Saturday." FRIDAY answers, voice filled with as much smugness as an advanced A.I. could muster. 

Tony stares bewildered at the ceiling and then ducks his head, and honest to God pout forming on his lips. “Mean, FRIDAY. That wasn’t very nice at all,” he says like a petulant child, kicking stubbornly at a stray piece of scrap metal.

“Whatever you say, Boss,” she says unapologetically.

Rhodey chuckles minutely at the A.I.’s attitude before focusing once again on Tony with an expectant look. 

“Wanna try again?” he asks.

Tony does his best to remain firm in his stubbornness before it gives out altogether and he sends Rhodey a half-hearted glare and a withering look. “Fine!” He exclaims, throwing his hands up defeatedly in the air. “For once, I haven’t worked on a single thing and I’ve been down here dancing my ass off to _Conga._ It’s not that big a deal. And you like Gloria Estefan too,” he accuses weakly.

“Not for four days straight or at ungodly hours of the night,” he replies flatly. “Why _Conga_ though?”

Tony shrugs and fiddled absently with the string on not-his sweatpants. “We watched the Birdcage yesterday, remember? I was doing stuff down here and it came on for some reason so I just let it keep playing. I really like that song.”

Rhodey furrows an eyebrow in concern. “Tony that was four days ago. We watched that on Tuesday.”

Tony blinks at him before turning his quickly tiring gaze towards the ceiling. “FRI, what’s today?”

“Saturday, August 17th, Boss,” she says.

“Oh,” Tony murmurs.

Any anger or frustration melts away when he recognizes that lost look he used to get when they were still in college. “You haven’t slept since Tuesday, have you?” he asks softly.

Tony looks at him and gives him a withering smile before shrugging. “Guess not.”

Rhodey sighs and slowly approaches Tony until the genius moves to meet him halfway and sags against his chest, bent forward so he could tuck his head under Rhodey’s chin.

“What’s going on Tones?” he asks gently,

“Nightmares,” he says, the words muffled by his chest. “The wormhole ones. Got really bad. Didn’t wanna sleep so I stayed up. Then my brain wouldn’t shut up, had a panic attack, so I played music super loud to drown it out.” 

Rhodey pulls him closer and lowers his face so it’s smushed into Tony’s dark curls. “So you confided in Gloria Estefan’s music rather than coming to me because why exactly?” he teases lightly, a hand coming up to tangle itself in the hair at the base of his neck.

Tony shakes his head. “You’ve got your own nightmares to worry about, I’m not gonna bother you with mine too.”

Rhodey tenses at that and pulls back slightly to look at the tired genius on his chest. “Tones—”

Tony dislodged his head from under Rhodey’s chin to give him a solemn stare. “Don’t go denying it, Rhodes,”

“Ouch. Last name usage?” Rhodey tries weakly.

Tony ignores him and pokes him in the chest. “You get nightmares same as me and you’re just as unwilling to talk about them out loud as I am. Same boat and all that shit.”

Rhodey has the gall to look surprised at such an accusation before he sighs and nods reluctantly. “Okay, that’s...a fair analysis.”

“I know,” Tony says triumphantly.

“Smartass,” Rhodey mutters fondly. “Anyway, I have a solution.”

“I’m listening.”

“We do what we did when we were in college,” he begins, stroking Tony’s hair gently. “Anytime either of us have a nightmare, or something’s bothering us, or we just feel like shit in general, we come find each other, no matter what is or when, we talk about it, or we don’t, and we just do something together to take our minds off of it, hm?”

Tony nods and worms his way back under Rhodey’s chin with a tired sigh. “Sounds good to me.”

“Cool,” Rhodey responds. The two continue to stand in the middle of the lab, gently swaying side to side, Rhodey’s hand Tony’s hair and Tony’s hands drawing patterns on Rhodey’s spine. 

“You wanna go watch The Birdcage til we fall asleep?” Rhodey asks after a while.

Tony groans and quickly shakes his head. “Fuck no, if I here _Conga_ again I might actually go insane.”

Rhodey laughs and draws the genius closer. “You sure you aren’t already there?” He teases lightly.

Tony punches Rhodey in the arm and flips him the bird without removing himself from his place underneath his chin. “Haha, fuck you. If I ever get there I’m taking you down with me, Platypus.”

Rhodey smiles softly and lifts Tony’s head by his chin to drop a chaste kiss between his eyes, smiling wider when Tony’s nose scrunches up and slight blush appears on his cheeks. “Of course you will, Tones.”

Tony averts his gaze and mutters something under his breath before planting a quick kiss on the side of Rhodey’s jaw, dropping his head back down to Rhodey’s chest. He looks rightfully tired, eyes struggling to stay open for much longer. “Can we go to bed now?” He asks sleepily.

Rhodey chuckles and smooths a hand affectionately through his hair before nodding. “Yeah. Let’s go, Agador. Think you’ve done enough dancing for a while.”

Tony gives him a faux glare before cracking an affectionate smile of his own and hugs Rhodey closer as the two make their way out of the lab for the night.

**Author's Note:**

> And there we have it! Thanks for reading, stan Rhodeytony and celebrate August 17th as Rhodeytony day. Also watch the Birdcage if you don’t understand any of these references it’s a good movie.


End file.
